Today I feel like mentioning the money situation here. Have I mentioned it before? I didn't think so. It's about Leones 3000 to the USD, and it's been fairly stable since we got here. We change dollars sometimes at the grocery store (gotta love those Lebanese businessmen) or we can write a check to the bank here. We walk out with Leones, and the account is debited a few weeks later. We don't usually walk around with that much cash... which has become something of a predicament. Food is really expensive!

We can easily spend $30 at the grocery store on 10 items or less. It's a little bit nuts. Going out to dinner can cost up to twice that much (and nothings all that great) Just this weekend at the beach, Dan's plate of rice and and a bit of fish (fresh caught barracuda!) cost about $10. So we are trying hard to keep track of our food expenses (pretty much the majority of the money we spend) and see where we can make changes. It seems to be running through our fingers.

I was getting used to using vegetables when cooking dinner... there aren't too many opportunities to get veggies here -- but women on the street usually keep stalls with potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, eggplants... the same everywhere you go. What I have recently discovered is that a lot of the produce here isn't farmed in the country, it is trucked across the border from Guinea, bought by the 50kg sack and resold here, one onion at a time. Last month for about 10 days and now again since Saturday there have been strikes and riots in Guinea. The Labor Unions and the youth are calling for the president (Conte) to step down. He's in his 70s, been in charge forever, and they say he's too sick to rule well and they want a prime minister appointed who can run the country. I think something like 25 people have died in the skirmishes in Conakry since Saturday. It's not clear now how long this will last or how it will go -- I don't think SL will get involved -- but the Embassy sent an announcement today to tell US citizens not to travel there. They are working on evacuating the families of mission staff. (by the way, you can read about what's happening in Guinea at www.bbc.co.uk -- go to News, World, Africa. also, www.allafrica.com will be talking about it too)

So that's todays excitement. but don't worry, we are fine. And hopefully, the unrest in Guinea will benefit the people of the country when its all over -- hopefully their lives will get better. We'll just have to wait and see.

Back to the money -- let me give you some typical prices:

taxi ride from our house to dan's office: anywhere from $0.25 to $0.50
bottle of water: $0.75
bottle of Star beer (hey, same as in Ghana!): $1.00 - $1.50
cheese sandwich: $5.00
basic salad: $8.00
bowl of soup: $8.00
pizza: $20.00

African dishes vary from place to place -- you can get a plate of local food for anywhere from $1.25 -- $10.00 depending on who's serving it. Ahhh well. It's helping me work on my cooking.